Topic: GRRM vs dogs (some minor books spoilers)

I haven't read everything that GRRM has written (yet), but I couldn't help but notice that in many of his stories a dog (or many dogs) gets dispatched in a rather grisly manner. There's this puppy in Sandkings (Omnomnom), the cook's bitch in Clash of Kings, in SoS the Brave Companions impale a dog and shake it over Jaime's head, Varamyr's dogs in DwD (man, three packed directly to doggie heaven just starting the book) and later Ramsay's "girls" tear apart one of Harwood Stout's dogs and poor Penny's dog also gets eliminated. Also, I almost forgot about Harma Dogshead.

A few days ago I finished with The Armageddon Rag, and when Larry Richmond's dog appeared I thought to myself, "Balrog's going to die", and sure enough, in a later chapter it gets killed rather violently. It didn't surprise me, as I was already expecting it. To be honest it annoyed me a bit, as the 'shock' of the scene was lost on me. I saw it coming as soon as the poor bugger appeared for the first time.

Now, this is not a PETA-like post to complain about the killing of fictional dogs, but it makes me wonder if GRRM is having a kind of "literary vendetta" against dogs, hahaha. I know some other animals also get killed in GRRM's stories, like the pregnant cat Joffrey opened or the one that got shot with his crossbow, but it doesn't happen as often. Has GRRM ever said anything about this? Is he more of a cat lover? Hehehe

I'm not giving it much importance, probably it's silly but yeah, I couldn't help but to notice. I think he needs to expand his horizons and start killing other things (I probably shouldn't give him ideas...I'm sure he would have killed poor ol' Sebastian in the Hobbit movie if he had written the script, hehehe). But please, no octopuses. If he ever destroys an octopus in a book, I'm out...(I'm joking)

And two direwolves have died (oops, and their mother) so, they aren't "protected" in world either.

-- Edited by Lyanna Stark on Wednesday 7th of August 2013 09:09:32 AM

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Rhaegar, despite wounding Robert, was struck down with a massive blow from Robert's warhammer, which scattered the rubies encrusted in Rhaegar's armor under the water. Rhaegar died with Lyanna Stark's name on his lips.

I think he just uses animal killing (remember horses too) as an easy way to increase the violence factor, and also probably because there aren't so many gruesome animal deaths in traditional fantasy, to my knowledge. I could be wrong. But I think he's just doing it to prove a point. Though I completely agree, it's unnecessary most of the times as it doesn't add much to the story.